Stalin-Bucharin and the Chinese Revolution

(December 1929)

But the reasons given by the present Central Committee for expelling me from the Party are:

1. They said: “Fundamentally, he is not sincere in recognizing his own mistake in the opportunist leadership of the period of the great Chinese revolution, and has not decided to recognize where is his real past error, so that he must inevitably continue his past erroneous line.” In reality, I was expelled because I sincerely recognized where the error of the former opportunist leadership lay, and decided to oppose the present and future continuation of wrong lines.

2. They said: “He is not satisfied with the decisions of the Communist International. He is fundamentally unwilling to come to Moscow to be trained by the International.” I have been trained enough by the Communist International. Formerly, I made many mistakes because I took the opinions of the Third International. Now I am expelled because I am not satisfied with those opinions.

3. Last August 5, I wrote a letter to the Central Committee in which there were the following sentences:

“Besides, what is the fundamental contradiction between the economic class interests of these two classes? Before and after the Canton uprising, I wrote several letters to the Central Committee pointing out that the ruling power of the Kuo Min Tang would not collapse as quickly as you estimated. At present, though, there are some mass struggles it is not enough to take them as the symptoms of the coming revolutionary wave.”

“The general legal movement, of course, is to give up the attempt at revolution. But under certain circumstances, when it is necessary to develop our power, ‘all possible legal measures, without a burning character’ (Lenin) should also not be given up in this (the transition) period.”

The Central Committee changed these sentences to read ambiguously:

“There is no contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the feudal forces. The present ruling class is not going to be overthrown and the revolutionary struggle is not beginning to revive but to decline more and more. He advocates the adoption of legal forms.”

Furthermore, they put a quotation mark around each sentence so as to make them seem like my original statement. This is another reason for my expulsion.

The Need for Democratic Slogans

4. I wrote another letter to the Central Committee on October 10 saying:

“The present period is not a period of the revolutionary wave, but a period of counter-revolution. We should elaborate democratic slogans as our general ones. For instance, besides the eight hour day demand, the confiscation of land, we should issue the slogans ‘Nullify the unequal treaties,’ ‘Against the military dictatorship of the Kuo Min Tang,’ ‘Summon the National Congress,’ etc., etc. It is necessary to make the broad masses active under these democratic slogans; then we can shake the counter-revolutionary regime, go forwards to the revolutionary wave, and make our fundamental slogans ‘Down with the Kuo Min Tang government,’ ‘Establish the Soviet regime,’ etc., the slogans of action in themass movement.”

On October 26; comrade Peng Shu Chi and I wrote a letter to the C.C. saying:

“This is not the transitional period to direct revolution, and we must have general political slogans adapted to this period; then we can win the masses. The workers and peasants Soviet is merely the propaganda slogan at present. If we take the struggle to organize Soviets as a slogan of action, we will certainly get no response from the proletariat.”

But the C.C. stated that we substitute for the slogans “Down with the Kuo Min Tang government” and “Establish the Soviet regime” the present general political slogan of “Summon the National Congress”. This is also one of the reasons for my removal.

5. I said in a letter that we should point out “the policy of treason or spoliation of the country by the Kuo Min Tang in the Chinese Eastern Railway”, making the “broad masses still imbued with nationalist spirit able to sympathize with us and oppose the maneuver of the imperialists to attack the Soviet Union by utilizing the Kuo Min Tang and making the Chinese Eastern Railway problem an excuse.” This was to help the slogan of defense for the U.S.S.R. penetrate the masses. But the C.C. said I wanted to issue the slogan of opposing the spoliation of the country by the Kuo Min Tang in place of the slogan of supporting the U.S.S.R. That is another reason why I was expelled.

6. I wrote the C.C. several letters dealing with the serious political problems within the Party. The C.C. kept them from the Party for a long time. Further, the delegate of the Comintern and the C.C. told me plainly that the principle is that different political opinions cannot be pronounced in the Party. Because there is no hope of correcting the mistakes of the Central Committee by means of a legal comradely discussion, I should not be bound by the ordinary discipline of the organization, and it is not necessary to prevent comrades from passing my letters to others for reading. This is also one of the reasons why I am expelled.

The Correctness of Trotsky’s Views

7. Since the “August 7” conference, the C.C. has not permitted me to participate in any meetings, nor has it given me any work to do. Still, on October 6 (only forty days before my expulsion), they suddenly wrote me a letter saying: “The C.C. has decided to ask you to undertake the work of editing in the C.C. under the political line of the Party, and to write an article Against the Opposition within a week.” As I had criticized the Central Committee more than once for continuing the line of opportunism and putschism, they tried to create some excuse for expulsion. Now I have recognized fundamentally that comrade Trotsky’s views are identical with Marxism and Leninism. How would I be able to write false words, contrary to my opinions?

8. We know that comrade Trotsky has decisively opposed the opportunist policy of Stalin and Bucharin. We cannot listen to the rumors of the Stalin clique and believe that comrade Trotsky, who created the October revolution hand in hand with Lenin, really is a counter-revolutionist (it may be “proved” by the rumors created about us by the Chinese Stalinist clique, Lee Li-San, etc.) Because we spoke of Trotsky as a comrade, the Central Committee accused us of “having already left the revolution, left the proletariat and gone over to the counter-revolution”, and expelled us from the Party.